Imagine you recently found yourself being more bullish on 21-year-old White Sox lefty Christian Oppor than the rest of the industry and were part of FanGraphs’ prospect team giving him a top-100 grade.
That might leave some questions about his remaining development that 116 strikeouts and a 3.08 ERA in 87⅔ innings across two levels of A-ball, or a max velocity of 100.6 mph last year can’t fully answer on their own. Luckily, this spring offered an opportunity to at least talk through the elements behind my assessment with Oppor himself, so let's go through my report again and line up his explanations that emerged with it.
It’s been a longer wait for Oppor to become a relevant prospect than was anticipated after the A’s used an 11th round pick on the Wisconsin prep lefty back in 2022.
"I had a good season; ERA was good, all that was good, the Stuff+ is coming up, now it's like, 'All right maybe I do have a better shot than when I was in '24 in the complex league, when it was super hot and not really that much fun," Oppor said.
He didn’t sign and pitched a year of JUCO ball before the White Sox’s love of their Area Codes players won the day and he was plucked in the fifth round for nearly $150,000 over his slot value. Still, it wouldn’t be until 2025 that Oppor escaped the complex...
"The biggest thing is we couldn't really find one set mechanic that I could focus on for a while, because we were searching and trying to find different things," Oppor said. "One time it would be that I was drifting down the mound and I wasn't getting into my back leg. Then it would be I'm too much in my back leg and kind of getting stuck and not rotating. It was all over the place trying to find a balance between all of them. Sort of figured it out toward the end [of 2024] but it was too late to get up [to an affiliate]. But spring training happened and ending up lining it all up."
...and he made up for lost time, with the 21-year-old earning a promotion to High-A after the first month and finishing with a combined 116 strikeouts against 42 walks in 87.2 innings of 3.08 ERA ball.
"I knew when I first got to Low-A that I was gonna be on [an innings] limit, and I kind of figured I was gonna be around the 80-to-100 mark, somewhere around there," Oppor said. "Being able to actually know what my stuff is going to do now versus like I'm going to throw a sweeper and it's going to be almost a curveball, or something like that, being able to actually use that is way more helpful than what it was in '24; trying to find pitches and stuff like that. With more consistent pitches, I can actually tunnel off stuff, make different pitch decisions based off where I want it to land."
Walks spiked on Oppor during the second half, but so did his stuff, hitting 100 mph on his two-seamer repeatedly down the stretch...
"I got hurt when I first got up to High-A, threw one outing and then had some trouble for a week, took a week off," Oppor said. "When I came back I just hammered recovery. One of the biggest things was when I was in High-A with [Dash athletic trainer] Austin [Smith], I didn't really have a routine for arm care or anything, so he helped me out with all that. Started doing that, started deadlifting a lot more, picking up some more weight. Next thing you know, I started throwing really hard."
...and finding a sweeper that worked with both his lower arm slot and his pronation inclinations.
"We're [working on that] right now, just trying some things," Oppor said, not sounding completely satisfied with its current state, though he largely feels they've found the right breaking ball shape for his lower arm slot. "Trying to kick it a little more horizontal. Had a bit of a rough time with it this offseason while ramping up and trying to throw it, so we're still dialing that one in.
Lately I've been throwing it a lot harder than what it was last year [77-83 mph] and with everything moving east to west, I think it's going to be in a pretty good spot for how all my pitches play."
Oppor gets less arm-side action on his changeup than his heater, which is typically problematic at upper levels, but he has shown the arm speed, velo separation and feel for location to carve with it (47% miss rate) thus far.
"I feel like ever since I got here, my changeup randomly got really good," Oppor said. "I haven't changed anything really. I'm just a huge pronator [referring to how his wrist rotates upon release] when I throw and it just happens to come out that way. Right now I'm working on the slider [which typically requires rotating the other way--supinate]. But changeup-fastball feels really good right now."
Still slenderly built after some strength gains, Oppor’s delivery is both fluid and easy-looking, and also kinda weird. He lands with his front foot still closed off to the plate, pinning it to the ground so he can crossfire around it with a uniquely short stride.
"That's something I've always had," Oppor said. "I didn't really notice it until I got here, and then I went back and looked at some old college videos and some high school, and I've always landed closed. Then right when I finish, I spin off and open it up. But I've never noticed it that I land super closed."
"We tried to mess with lead leg block, try to get out [down the mound more] and it didn't really work, so it was 'keep doing what you're doing.'"
Along with a fastball that gets over a foot of arm-side run, it’s not the most typical look for commanding the glove side to right-handers.
"If I was throwing [my fastball] down it might sink a little more, versus if I was throwing it up it might ride a little bit more. I'm still tinkering with the hand position and being able to keep my wrist true versus flattening out. That's what it is; my hand will flatten out and it will tend to sink a little more versus staying true with my hand with the consistent shape we want. But this year I haven't had any problems with it so far, so hopefully it's getting better."
There’s a threadbare history of strike-throwing here, especially with any spin, but the emergence of above-average left-handed velocity, his dynamic on-mound athleticism, and Oppor’s changeup performance has us buying this as an arrow-up profile.
"It's definitely nice to see my name up there and stuff like that. It gives, I guess, a little more hope for some people," Oppor said. "I've talked with a couple of pitching coaches and I've had outings where maybe it doesn't move as much as I want, but if it's in the zone, it can still be effective. Even with all the pitch metrics, I'm trying to be in the zone. I look at that stuff between innings, asking 'How is it moving?' And the pitching coach says, 'It's moving great, exactly how we want it to be,' then I'm just trying to keep it there."
"It's been, honestly, a huge jump from what it was in '24 so I'll take it as far as I can, being able to throw pitches that actually move how I want them to move."
